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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
Lorenzo Valla in his De Linguae latinae elegantiis is highly critical of previous Latin grammatical studies. In particular Valla seeks in this linguistic treatise to revise for his contemporaries the teachings of Donatus, Servius, and Priscian which he found in conflict with his ideal of classical Latin usage; and in general he seeks to complement the extant grammatical tradition of antiquity. In Book VI of the Elegantiae Valla treats topics explicitly drawn from ancient grammatical sources, which he further explicates and clarifies. Moreover, many of the topics of Books I–III are drawn from these same sources, as Valla's frequent citation of them indicates. In contrast with ancient and imperial grammarians, Isidore of Seville is named only twice in the Elegantiae. In the preface to Book II (II. praef. 41). Valla brands him ‘indoctorum arrogantissimus, qui quum nihil sciat, omnia praecipit.’ He mentions Isidore once more when rejecting an ‘inept’ etymology of oratio from oris ratio (VI. 36.217). Despite the paucity of explicit references to Isidore in the Elegantiae, however, a comparison of Valla's and Isidore's linguistic discussions suggests that Valla intended a direct response to Isidore's verbal distinctions (differentiae), definitions, and etymologies in his own section on signification, Books IV and V of the Elegantiae.
1 Camporeale, S. I., Lorenzo Valla, Umanesimo e Teologia (Firenze 1972) 144 n. 18: ‘Nella critica filologica latina il Valla ha sempre presente le opere di Donato e di Servio; ma e so- prattutto sugli scritti di Prisciano che concentra la sua polemica, ed è particolarmente a quest'ultimo che contrappone continuamente, nelle Elegantiae e nelle Recriminationes, il “suo” Quintiliano (insieme a Cicerone).’ Valla believed that the ancient grammarians had faults of commission and of omission. First he records those Latin words in the definitions of which he believed that the grammarians actually had made errors. Secondly, he cites essential linguistic points passed over by extant grammatical texts. He does not consider his observations as necessarily unprecedented, but as replacing a part of the ancient grammatical tradition lost through the centuries. Employing an argumentum ex silentio, he explains omissions of many points by the imperial grammarians as due to their reluctance to repeat material from such classical linguistic works as those of Varro, , Caesar, , and Messalla, , whose texts had been extant in late antiquity (II. praef. 41).Google Scholar
2 With his passion for proper denotation Valla distrusts etymology as a way of discovering the meaning of a word. Such etymologies as are found in the works of Isidore and the medieval glossaries go back to Stoic linguistic sources. The naturalistic concept of the Stoics posits a correspondence between words and the things they denote. The irregularity (anomaly) of a living language only vaguely reflects this correspondence. Hence the Stoics had recourse to fanciful etymologies to arrive at the ‘natural’ origins of words, which may have become obscure through linguistic change. See Schröter, R., ‘Die varronische Etymologie,' Fondation Hardt pour l'étude de l'antiquité classique, Entretiens IX (Geneva 1962) 79–100, especially 86ff. Although he recognizes the great polymath as the acknowledged linguistic authority of antiquity (IV.31.213), Valla criticizes Varro, who preserves material from Stoic linguistic sources, for his foolish confidence in etymology (VI.36.217). According to Valla, erroneous etymologies result in erroneous definitions and vice versa (VI.52.228).Google Scholar
3 Although, as Goetz, indicates, Valla hardly opposed correction of medieval vocabularies, the following statement might well describe the chapters of the Elegantiae discussed below: ‘Itaque qui procuderunt talia opera [studia lexigraphica] aut scholiastas Vergilii, Horatii, aliorum excerpebant, excerpta in glosarii formam redigebant, qualia inveniuntur non pauca, velut illud Guarini glossarium … aut quae in vetustioribus glossarum collectionibus inventa sunt propagabant et ad recentiorum temporum usum aliquo modo accommodabant' (CGL I.241).Google Scholar
4 Of course Book X of Isidore's Etymologiae is alphabetically arranged as well. For a discussion of the relationship between Isidore's text and the Italian lexica, see Riessner, C., Die ‘[Magnat Derivationes' des Uguccione da Pisa und ihre Bedeutung für die romanische Philologie (Roma 1965) 41ff.Google Scholar
5 In the same chapter Valla presents a derivation of Promontorium (‘locus est in mari prominens'…) very similar to Isidore's ‘Commune est insulis ut promineant. Inde et loca earum promuntoria dicuntur’ (Etym. 14.7.1). Google Scholar
6 In L. Vallam Invectiva prima in Poggii Opera Omnia (Basel: Petri, H., 1538; repr. with introd. by Fubini, R. [Torino 1964]) I.194: ‘Animadverti furta, cognovi expilationem ex aliorum supellectili non obscure factam, ut qui repetundarum rerum nunc furem velit accusare, manifestis testibus uti possit.’Google Scholar
7 Several other passages in Books IV and V of the Elegantiae also seem to be paraphrases of earlier grammarians' observations: e.g. Servius on flere, plorare, and plangere (A.11.211), which has prompted Valla's discussion of these and related words (V. 52.181). Likewise Valla's chapter (IV.56.142) on sylva, lucus, saltus, and nemus is a conflation of several earlier sources, including Festus (159, 392f. Lindsay), Servius (A.1.310) and Isidore (Etym. 17.6.5–8). Google Scholar
